“How do you want me to cook the potatoes?” Lottie asked as she hunched herself over the stove. She had to use a stepping stool to make herself the right height, her long, scraggly gray hair pulled out of her face by a neon green scrunchie.

Donovan shrugged from behind his newspaper, his face blending in with the black text. “However you want.”

you were sitting across from me in the red diner booth. you are the thing that’s simple about my life, you are easy, you are good. you are not enough. you smiled with your small teeth as you plucked the fry from the white basket with two manicured fingers. I know you can’t live up to her, and it’s not fair to ask you to.

Whoever came up with the idea to fry foods was a genius. They probably didn’t live to be terribly old, what with clogged arteries and the potential for a heart attack looming around every corner, as I imagine when they discovered the wonders of fried foods, they never looked back. Just imagine someone coming up with this wonderful way of cooking foods, and over the years becoming more flabby and grotesque, saturated fats practically dripping from their pores.

I’d always walked over to the same old milkshake place, order some friend and a fudge milkshake. I knew all of the people there.
That place had great memories.
At least… When my mom was here.
I could still hear the oil sizzling as they made the french fries, hear the laughing growing louder than the jukebox in the corner.
I snapped back to reality as the waitress brought over my food.

Fry a fish, and it will become a delicacy for those who eat it. Fry a mouse? Now that’s just weird, but I guess if there are no fish around and you are starving, you have to face some challenges. Though…we could just make a sandwich or something. I don’t think a mouse would taste very good.

The potatoes fried and fried in the pan on the stove, burning away neglected by James, who was in his room dealing with a horrible breakup. They turned from white to brown to black, cooking until the pan was ruined and the kitchen started to fill with smoke, but James didn’t care, more important things were being ruined at that moment.

What if my fingers were replaced by fries? They would be useless in most things hands are for, like picking up objects or grasping anything. They would taste amazing but you can’t eat them because you need them. Also, that would hurt quite a bit. So fry fingers are definitely a bad idea, but I will still enjoy all the fries that are not attached to my hands.

“Oh my God,” Takumi groaned, dropping his head into his hands. “My brain is fried.”
“Maybe if you didn’t stay up so late this wouldn’t be a problem,” Seth muttered.
“I have two tests today, Seth, I can’t deal with you right now.”
“Can you deal with breakfast at least?” Seth pushed a plate over and smiled when Takumi looked up. “Fried eggs, to go with your brain.”
“I hate you.”

I fried the bacon as he walked into the kitchen. He wore nothing but his boxers, unfortunately. Fortunately. I can’t really tell any more. All I knew is I wanted him in my life. and if this was the only way for it to be, then I will cook him bacon as his mistress every goddamn morning.

Don’t ever think that a person is just some small fry. In their own way, their fighting against a big unknown. You don’t know their struggles, internal and not. So don’t call anyone a small fry until you live their life.

Shoulders exposed and long flamingo gowns twirling. The rococo amber light flooding the room and bathing the walls. Silken oysters offered on platters like little blue irises and delicate cones of chicken that fry and bubble and hiss and spit. The fire of the setting sun marking us out. Cognac, Gin, Whisky, Bourbon, the sharp delectable taste of rum. Twinkling piano music reminding us that someone will die before dawn.

over the grease
bubbling up – hot sticky wet
(this oil needs changed)
thinking of stepping right in
to meet the bubbling oil
with flesh of his own that will surely bubble just the same
maybe just a splash on the face
to wipe the trace of something i don’t believe in anyway

“Fried potatoes are one of the tastiest things in this world, aren’t they?” I asked, while dipping my little yellow friend in the mayonnaise. Chuck just made this stupid face again and sipped on his coke. “If you say so.”, he muttered and turned to the window. “Hey, did you hear about the missing girl from the senior year?” I looked at his sharp profile and nodded.

My boss shouted over the din of tourists, bikers and young people looking for trouble or fun or both. It was bike week in Laconia, New Hampshire. A mass of people clamored for greasy food at our concession stand. One of many that sat, surrounded by this sea of humanities, like plywood buoys in the rough northern seas. I filled up the fryolators with some more fresh cut fries. I looked up while wiping sweat off my brow. I heard a laugh that pierced through the rest of the cacophony. I turned to the sound and I saw her. And my life changed.

She flipped the burger to the other side and pressed firmly with the spatula. “Look, I’m trying to concentrate.” He laughed and sipped his beer, squinting into the sunlight. “I have a distracting effect on women.”